“My nose is blown, doc,” mopes a bandaged bloodhound cop as he sags against a panel border. In “No Nose is Good Nose,” Dr. Howland Owl laughs at the patient, violating his “hippocritical oaf.” Set in Okefenokee Swamp, Pogo (1948-75) features a wealth of sarcastic, nonsensical critters: an antidote to Disney. WALT KELLY (1913-73) did time in The Mouse Factory before creating Pogo. “What hath got rot?” says Kelly, speaking through Grizzle Bear. Via Li’l Mouse, he says of his artistic forerunner Krazy Kat: “It was an intellectual thing… one used to chuck a brick at the other.” As a child, I mimicked Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us!” but only reading the strip as an adult did I understand Kelly was spoofing everything from pride (“Somebody is offered you a feature part in a lamb stew?”) to politics (“The ecomedy of my country is already undermound,” says Castro the bearded goat.) With its satirical skewers, fluidity of line and fractured wordplay, Pogo is a comic masterpiece. While “skeptnics” argue over the ice cream moon race, Albert Alligator overeats and complains: “A free country should have protected us from making pigs of ourselves.” The Plotters Thicken.

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On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes. Also born this date: | Martin Amis |

About the Author

Annie Nocenti’s comic work includes Daredevil, Longshot, Catwoman and Typhoid. After her experiences on the poker circuit, she was the guest editor of Stop Smiling #35, the Gambling Issue of the magazine. She taught filmmaking in Haiti, an experience detailed in Goudou Goudou for HILOBROW. Her journalism has appeared in Details, Scenario, Filmmaker and more. Her falcon tale, The Most Expensive Road Trip in the World, appears in Anthony Bourdin’s Best Travel Writing 2008. Her documentary Disarming Falcons was featured at DOC NYC 2014. Website: annienocenti.com.